Individuation: Re-thinking the scope of privacy laws

21 Sep 2016

Privacy and Compliance

When does information become personal information – therefore subject to the Privacy Act, and when is it not? Privacy is not something that can be taken for granted, hence the need to adhere to Australian Privacy Principles.

In the much vaunted Telstra vs Grubb case recently heard before the full bench of the Federal Court, one point argued was that the Administrative Appeals Tribunal had judged that “mobile network data is not ‘personal information’ subject to the Privacy Act, because it is ‘about’ connections between mobile devices, rather than ‘about an individual’, notwithstanding that a known individual triggered the call or data session which caused the connection.”

Is that the ‘guns don’t kill people…’ argument being shoehorned into the privacy debate? Privacy’s greatest current challenges are around the ability to de-identify data and ensure the confidentiality of personal information. Data is currently used for efficiency and good on so many levels, however the rights of the individual must remain a constant.